In 2017, net immigration amounted to
211,900 people, the smallest number of this category since 2010.And now that Russians are again experiencing
fewer births than deaths, that means the population of the country will grow only
slowly at best and may in fact decline in the coming years if immigration falls
further.

Given the Kremlin’s obsession about
size and its extensive rather than intensive approach to economic development, that
trend has serious consequences for the economy, society and the political
system as well, given the role immigrants play in all three spheres and the
money the Russian regional governments take in from selling permission to immigrants.

Ukrainians continue to form the largest share of immigrants, but their
numbers declined sharply between 2016 when 118,800 immigrated and 2017 when
only 47,700 did, a decline responsible for much of the fall off the report
focused on.CIS countries and especially
the Central Asian ones continued to dominate, providing more than 90 percent of
the total.

Migrants continue to move to the major
cities and their environs, Moscow, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar kray.They have played an especially large role in
boosting the population of the second capital, where migrants formed 92 percent
of the population increase in 2017, 44 percent more than a year earlier.

Temporary migration into Russia has
also declined, although the numbers officially registered in this category have
not fallen as much. Most foreign workers in Russia are as before “citizens of the
countries of Central Asia, whose share of all foreign migrant workers has been
increasing, with all-too-obvious social consequences.

Up to now, the report says, Russia’s
regional governments have not seen a decline in income from the sale of patents
which immigrant workers are required to have. Indeed, there has been an
increase in their income from this source over the last three years but only
because officials have worked harder to enforce the law and have raised prices
as well.